COVID-19: Accelerating the Future of Work

April 15, 2020

As remote work becomes the 'new normal' for many around the world, the security threats resulting from the rapidly changing work conditions are posing unprecedented challenges for businesses. The immediate need to shift work conditions left organizations scrambling to institute remote working policies with many executives unprepared to roll out the right tools and procedures securely and at scale.

However, for companies it's not just about being prepared for a global pandemic. It's also about readiness for the future – creating a secure work environment, regardless of the employees’ location to prevent data breaches and protect intellectual property.

Secure communication is already undergoing a dramatic change as you read this. Traditional communication vendors are currently under scrutiny for not delivering the security needed by large enterprises and government organizations because they suffer from “man-in-the-middle vulnerability”, meaning that they technically can read all content shared and listen in on all calls. The landscape is changing dramatically and now more than ever, we are steadfast that the Future of Work belongs to tools that have eliminated this vulnerability by delivering both mobility and security.

“The COVID-19 crisis is a wakeup call to ensure enterprise and government organisations not only have the infrastructure to support secure remote work, but equally that they prepared for the Future of Work.” – Morten Brøgger, CEO at Wire™

As we shift work outside of the office - communication styles are moving away from formal emails to messaging, which is only amplified by younger generations coming into the workforce. Adding that cyber security risks are projected to cost businesses and governments $6 trillion by 2021,
the pandemic is surely set to be one of the biggest experiments in remote working history – potentially increasing this cost, and companies need to be prepared for the security implications associated with a decentralized workforce.

More broadly, in the coming decade, it will be crucial for market-leading technology providers to collaborate on an industry standard for privacy and security in this new digital era of work. This is already underway with the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) working group set up by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), of which founding members include Mozilla, Facebook, Wire, Google and Twitter. MLS is a new protocol currently being developed, that is designed to firm up the security of enterprise messaging platforms by employing end-to-end encryption within group communication. It has the potential to revolutionise the enterprise by making collaboration efficient, inexpensive, and secure.

If there is one takeaway from this work experiment it's that the Future of Work is already happening. And in order to win in the information-led economy of the future, company leaders should prepare to shift critical communications involving sensitive data to a secure environment that offers end-to-end encryption.

About Wire

Wire is the most secure collaboration platform, transforming the way organizations communicate at the same speed that our founders disrupted telephony with Skype. Featuring messaging, voice and video calling, file-sharing, and external collaboration - all protected by end-to-end encryption. Wire has been recognized by IDC, Forrester, and Gartner as one of the most effective and secure communications platforms there is on the market today.